Toca Race Psp
Leda Billock
The first game of the series was released for Windows and PlayStation platforms in late 1997 in Europe, and in summer 1998 in the United States (as TOCA Championship Racing). Featuring all the licensed cars (not including privateers) and tracks from the 1997 British Touring Car Championship, the game was critically acclaimed by the European games press, especially on console where it was widely considered the best in its genre until the release of Gran Turismo several months later.
The success of the first TOCA game saw a sequel arrive a year later in 1998. Whilst mainly an annual franchise update of cars and tracks, the game did add more detailed graphics, physics, multiplayer modes and other minor features. Fictional (but realistic) tracks were added, and support races such as Ford Fiestas, Formula Ford and others also arrived. The level of car damage possible during a race was also enhanced, which was a significant selling point compared with the likes of Gran Turismo. It was called Touring Car Challenge in the USA.
As the title suggests, the series made a significant advance in featuring various Touring Car championships from around the world, TOCA World Touring Cars, which was released in 2000, but despite carrying the TOCA name, a fully licensed British Touring Car Championship (TOCA) series was not included. The gameplay overall became more "arcadey" and the replacement of qualifying laps with random grid positions together with the omission of penalties for bad driving made the game much more playable for the casual gamer. Unlike the first two titles in the TOCA series, World Touring Cars was not released in a Windows version.
The series moved onto the 6th generation of gaming in August 2002, with the release of TOCA Race Driver (called DTM Race Driver in Germany, Pro Race Driver in North America and V8 Supercars: Race Driver in Australia). The game took the series in a new direction, and introduced a plot centering around fictional race driver Ryan McKane, trying to make a name for himself in a multitude of car championships.
Race Driver 2 was released on Xbox and PC in April 2004, with a PlayStation 2 version following six months later. Two PSP conversions were released in 2005 and 2006, the first being TOCA Race Driver 2 in Europe and Japan and the second being Race Driver 2006 in the US. The game continued to use a scripted career mode as introduced in the previous Race Driver game but dropped the Ryan McKane character.
The third game in the TOCA Race Driver series was released in February 2006, and continued to expand on the types of motorsport available. Open wheel, GT, oval racing, rallying, and offroad racing were all featured, and can be raced in either a detailed Pro Career mode or an open-ended World Tour. Up to 12 players are supported via Xbox Live and the PlayStation 2 version supports up to 8 online. This series is the only racing simulator that allows PlayStation players to race online before Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. It received good reviews, frequently being compared favourably to Gran Turismo 4 and Forza Motorsport, in the aspects of cars on track, damage and AI.
Race Driver: Create & Race was developed by Firebrand Games exclusively for Nintendo DS. Create and Race is the second racing game developed by Firebrand Games to run on the Octane game engine (after Cartoon Network Racing).[19] The engine was upgraded to support a track editor and Firebrand Games would go on to reuse it for DS versions of Race Driver: Grid[20] and Dirt 2.[21]
Race Driver took the game in a new direction, since the main game mode featured a plot (leading to the game being labelled as a "Car-PG") where the player would take on the role of a fictional race driver called Ryan McKane, trying to make a name for himself in a multitude of car championships, all the while under the shadow of his more successful older brother and haunted by the death of his father on the racetrack (as witnessed by Ryan as a child).
The British Touring Car Championship (TOCA) which gives the game series its name, returned for this game. The real-life championship had undergone a transformation after most of the manufacturers had pulled out, and crowd numbers dropped, so TOCA asked Codemasters to include the series to boost the audience interest. However, the return was short-lived. Many tracks were added, and some of the "World" tracks were not continued from TOCA 3, despite their popularity, such as Watkins Glen and Surfers Paradise. The game continued with random grid positions and no penalties for bad driving.
In the UK, Official UK PlayStation 2 Magazine gave the PS2 version a score of eight out of ten and said that it was an "ultra-realistic racer with top visuals";[36] they also listed it in their top 100 games and awarded it a Bronze Medal.
A sequel, TOCA Race Driver 2 was released in April 2004 for Windows and Xbox and later for PlayStation 2 in October 2004. Two more platforms were also released: a mobile version was released only in North America in February 2005 and the PlayStation Portable version was released only in Europe in September 2005. The North American version also uses the redesigned Race Driver name.
The series moved onto Playstation 2 in August 2002, with the release of TOCA Race Driver (called "Pro Race Driver" in North America, "DTM Race Driver" in Germany, and V8 Supercars: Race Driver in Australia). The game took a new direction, since the main game mode featured a plot (leading to the game being labelled as a "Car-PG") where the user took on the role of a fictional race driver called Ryan McKane, trying to make a name for himself in a multitude of car championships, all the while under the shadow of his more successful older brother and haunted by the death of his father on the racetrack (as witnessed by Ryan as a child).
Despite this slightly clichd script, the racing elements of the game continued to receive positive reviews and the game went straight to number one in the UK game charts. Xbox and PC conversions followed in March 2003, with a further Xbox version released several months later at budget price adding Xbox Live support. The game came under heavy criticism because of its inaccurate damage models, in some cases a Mini was able to complete the circuit despite only having 1 wheel and no doors.
Interestingly, the BTCC returned for this game. The real-life championship had undergone a transformation after most of the manufacturers had pulled out, and crowd numbers dropped, so TOCA asked Codemasters to include the series to boost the audience interest. However, the return was short-lived.
Post-publication shouting: Attention! Sumo Digital made this game! We forgot to put that the first time! This is quite surprising as they also ported OutRun 2 and did OutRun 2006, which we usually mention at least once a day! Exclamation exclamation oneoneshift normal service resumes.
Wacky game features are always the best. You know what TOCA was clearly missing? An option to turn the screen upside down. This lets you use the analogue nub for acceleration and braking, while the PSP's face buttons act as a d-pad. This, I'm reliably informed, is how "the hardcore" play. It is, as Kieron would probably point out, "very emo".
It's also symptomatic of TOCA Race Driver 3's devotion to its new home. There's no shortage of viewpoints to opt for (bumper, bonnet, in-car, third-person), there's a rare outing for the game-sharing option (we'd forgotten how to use it, it's been so long), there's replay-saving and even custom soundtrack support. Nice work, Codemasters.
Of course, some of that was there in the last handheld TOCA. New to the PSP's confusingly named second outing - and responsible for its longer title - is the World Challenge mode, which throws you onto tracks in various bits of the world with specific objectives, the idea being to develop your skills before it plunges you into qualifying and Grand Prix. This does mean that your traditional dour Scottish mechanic is absent, but it (and indeed that) is not entirely without merit.
The difficulty of picking up TOCA's handling isn't sufficient to warrant quite so many skill-building tasks, but the decision to chunkify the game does help you to learn the track layouts (crucial during races, obviously), and more pointedly aims to school you about racing lines, braking distances and so on. Advanced stuff, you might say.
The best examples of this are fun rather than simply educational. One recurring task involves snaking through cone gates before your time is up, and it's hard to resist the temptation to repeat this until you've claimed the gold medal. Project Gotham Racing fans will certainly understand. Keeping up your average speed over two laps is similarly engrossing. Meanwhile, "No Damage" is about trying to win a race without simply bullying other cars out of the way by messing up your paintwork.
But while these work and the "Challenge" theory is certainly sound, other areas fall down for the same reasons that everyone slags off Gran Turismo's licence tests. Braking challenges are tedious affairs - it's hard to sell the fun of driving by focusing on the bits where you don't drive, after all. This is particularly apparent when the task involves trying to park a car you've never encountered before on a series of distant squares that, at the point you need to start slowing down, are sometimes only visible on the mini-map. All this is done against the clock, too.
Elsewhere, "Drive the Line" ought to be more helpful, illustrating the optimal route around complex circuits, but in practice it's a constant battle to remain within the narrow confines of the line indicator on the track. If you stray too far to one side your success percentage starts to dip, and you're often so preoccupied with this that you fly uncontrollably into corners, all of which somewhat negates the point of the exercise. I suppose it teaches you about when to expect the meanest corners, but not exactly via the medium of fun.
64591212e2